5 Times Harvey Found Out Something About Mike
by Gandalf3213
Summary: ...and one time Mike found out something about Harvey. Chapter 6: Mike thought he knew as much about Harvey as he ever would, but that was before his little brother took Mike out to lunch.
1. Job

_Why do we fall? So that we learn to pick ourselves back up. **Batman Begins**_

.***.

The thing about living in the middle of New York City is that it's expensive. The kind of expensive that someone like Mike couldn't afford all that easily. The kind of expensive that led to scrimping and saving, to skipping meals and wearing socks that already were more holes than fabric.

How was it that he was making less money since working at Pearson Hardman? Before, when he'd taken the LSATs for struggling or lazy law school hopefuls and done other odd jobs, he'd been able to get by, been able to eat, and been able to take care of his grandmother's ever-rising bills.

But now…now it was like the world was conspiring against Mike Ross. He was not usually prone to paranoia, but how else to explain the fact that his rent and his grandmother's bills had gone up astronomically in the space of a couple of months?

He was working ninety hours a week, more if you counted the amount of work he was doing from home, but he couldn't live like this anymore. Even Harvey had pointed out that he was losing weight (his exact words were "are you trying to work on your figure, princess? Because the emaciated prison look was so ten years ago.)

And it wasn't like his second job was difficult. Okay, maybe there were better places to work than a twenty-four hour convenience store in a truly shitty part of town, but he needed a new bike and he needed to eat and he needed to keep his grandmother in a good home. He needed sleep a lot less.

"Why is your face like that?" Harvey asked one morning when he and Mike stepped into the elevator together.

The younger man sighed, tugging his bag tighter across his shoulders, "That's so sixth-grade, Harvey. Can't think of better insults?"

"What? No, let me use small words. You look tired. I do not need tired associates."

"I was up late doing the Jefferson brief." Mike defended, and it was most of the truth. He had been up late, and he had done the Jefferson brief, he'd just brought it to work and done it in the hours-long lulls between customers. And he'd been standing for six hours, which is why his legs felt like they were going to give way.

"Then drink more coffee. Appearance is everything."

"Really? I didn't know that. You should definitely remind me of that more often," Mike groused, and Harvey hit him with a don't-be-a-smart-ass glare. Mike kind of smiled, though, sensing the subject being dropped.

With any luck, he might have gotten away with it. Moonlighting wasn't so much forbidden as unheard of. Not many people could work fourteen or fifteen hours, rush home for an apple and a two-hour nap, work for six hours, and then, if he was lucky, catch another hour nap and a shower. It was wearing him down, and Harvey's comments about his weight continued because, ironically, the job he'd taken to help pay for food was seriously crimping his eating habits.

But he only needed to do this until his grandmother's newest therapy, an eight-week session of drugs, finished. He would quit the convenience store job and was hoping that by the time she needed the therapy again he'd get a small raise from Pearson Hardman. It was only for eight weeks. He could keep a secret for that long.

"Tell me you're not selling drugs." Harvey had said unexpectedly one morning a month into his two-month plan.

"I'm not selling drugs," Mike said, caught off guard, and maybe the sincerity in his voice was what made Harvey look up and scrutinize him carefully.

"You need to sleep more."

"According to recent studies, about a third of American adults get less than the recommended eight hours of sleep." Mike pointed out, raising an eyebrow so that Harvey knew that Mike was including him in this number.

"You look like death warmed over. It's depressing to see first thing in the morning."

"I'm sorry," Mike said, rolling his eyes obviously, "maybe you forget what being at the bottom of the food chain is like, Harvey. I'm _supposed_ to be staying up past my bedtime. How else would I get all this done?" He dropped a pile of briefs onto the desk, smiling a little at Harvey's incredulous expression. At least his job was good for getting all the work done.

Three weeks left to go, and Mike was getting used to the cycle, getting better at hiding it. He would sleep Saturday nights and Sunday mornings, and that was enough of a break to not completely destroy his body. And it was only three weeks (three weeks!). There was a light at the end of the tunnel.

It would have worked, too, if he hadn't ended up in the emergency room.

The thing about living in the middle of New York City is that it's occasionally dangerous. Occasionally, it's very dangerous. At the end of one night when Mike was counting down the minutes until he could clock out and catch another hour of sleep, the bell at the entrance chimed. Mike barely even glanced up from the paper. He was trying to get his tired brain to focus on legalese and it was not working very well.

The mugging was despicably average. A huge guy who could have been a bouncer or an ex-wrestler held up a gun and asked Mike for the money. Mike pressed the button under the desk for 9-1-1, all the time feeling his heart pounding his chest because oh-my-God that gun looked lethal. The guy saw him press the button and whacked him over the head with the butt of the gun (the gun turned out not to be loaded) then kicked him, kicked him, kicked him while he was down, then stepped over his body to get to the money.

When the police arrived they arrested the guy, who'd gone four blocks and then stopped in a shop for a cup of coffee. An ambulance took Mike to a nearby hospital despite the fact that he told the EMS that he was fine, and could get home if they just dropped him off at his apartment.

"SOP, man." A twenty-something guy had said, probing his head wound, "And you got beat up good. I'm surprised you're still conscious."

"Adrenaline." Mike said, and then passed out from sheer exhaustion, so he couldn't really protest when he was shuttled off to a room.

How Harvey Specter came to learn about the incident was entirely the fault of one Peter Kettering. Dr. Peter Kettering was looking over Mike's charts (which were extensive, mostly stuff from childhood, but Harvey wouldn't know about _those_ until later) when a nurse poked her head in the room and said that the guy's emergency contact was living in some state like Montana or Michigan and obviously couldn't come to pick him up.

If Mike had woken up before that point, he certainly would have signed himself out AMA, but he didn't, which is why Dr. Kettering lingered in the room and wondered if this scrawny-looking kid had anyone looking out for him in the world.

"Ross," he muttered to himself, and the word tickled some memory in the very back of his mind. "Mike Ross…" Where had he heard that name before?

Peter Kettering had a habit of talking to anyone he met, and he found Harvey Specter, who lived in the apartment above him, endlessly fascinating. They weren't bosom buddies, but if they happened to come into the complex at the same time they'd often take a detour to a nearby café and talk over drinks. Two intelligent, ambitious men with a lot in common.

Now, Mike Ross wasn't the least common name in the world, but Kettering decided to give it a shot. He had Harvey's business card in the back of his wallet somewhere, a leftover from some long-ago first meeting. He could give him a call, ask if that young kid he had working for him had showed up for work yet. Ask if Mike Harvey happened to be pale, and thin, and scrawny, and work at a twenty-four hour convenience store in a bad part of town.

It was a long shot, but Kettering would never forgive himself if he didn't try to find someone to be there for this kid.

When Harvey got the phone call, he was just starting to get really pissed that his associate was late. Again. So he was a little distracted when he picked up and said, "Hello?"

"Harvey? It's Peter Kettering." Harvey made a small noise of surprise while Peter rushed on, "This may be a strange question, but has that new kid you hired, Mike Ross? Has he showed up to work today?"

"No…" And Harvey would never admit to anyone that his heart sped up, or skipped a beat, or something, because right at that moment he remembered that Peter Kettering was Dr. Peter Kettering. That he was calling from a hospital. That this could be something bad.

"Maybe you should come down here, Harvey."

What Harvey was expecting was a bike accident, and he was mentally kicking himself for not telling Mike that he could borrow his car any time he wanted. How many times had he just commented on the sad state of Mike's clothes, as if he didn't know that the kid had just rode through rush hour traffic on the in them?

What Harvey wasn't expecting was to find out that not only was Mike beat up by some thug, but he was beat up while working another job. That got him just steamed enough to barge into Mike's room as he was attempting to put on his coat. "What the hell were you thinking?"

If the Holy Mother had just flung open the door and started doing cartwheels, Mike couldn't have been more surprised. "I…Harvey, why did they call you? I was just going to sign myself out. Am I late? What time…?" He glanced at the clock over Harvey's head and blanched, "Sorry about that."

"You have another _job_?" Harvey seethed, "When do you have time for another job?"

"I don't, really. But I needed the money." At Harvey's expression, Mike got defensive. "You're the one who keeps telling me to eat more."

"We pay you, don't we?" Harvey asked, exasperated. "Why did you have to take on a minimum-wage gig in the murder capitol of the world?"

"New York isn't even close to being the murder capitol of the world."

"Not anywhere near the point." Harvey said, struggling to control his temper. Why did he care so much? What was it to him if the kid had another job?

"It wasn't supposed to interfere with my work with you," Mike said, suddenly sounding so pitiful that Harvey looked at him, really looked at him, and saw the bruises and cuts all over his body, "But, you know, my grandmother's bills really pile up, and then rent, and I had to buy new suits and stuff for work and I had no money at all."

And then Harvey realized why he was so upset, why hearing about this other job completely set him over the edge. "You could have asked me." He said, the words dropping from his mouth like stones hurled. "You could have asked me."

Mike was a little stunned when Harvey walked out on him, left him on the hard bed struggling to put on his coat, wincing every time his cracked ribs moved. When he got to the front desk, though, he was told that Harvey had covered his bill, "and he left this," the nurse said, handing over a piece of paper.

MIKE,

DON'T BOTHER SHOWING UP TO WORK TODAY.

HARVEY

Mike took a deep breath. What had he been expecting? _Not this_, he admitted, and nearly crumpled up the paper before he saw that there was more writing.

THAT DOESN'T MEAN YOU'RE FIRED, IDIOT. GO TO BED.

.***.

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	2. Family

_"You care so much you feel as though you will bleed to death with the pain of it." **Order of the Phoenix**_

.***.

Harvey doesn't snoop into people's lives. Honestly, he doesn't know or care what most people do after they interact with him. It's like those venn diagrams he had to learn about in fourth grade – circles intersecting at one small point and then bridging out into separate spheres.

There were exceptions. He sincerely cared about Donna, who'd been with him for years and who was the foundation for most of his professional life. He had a younger brother, who he'd always adored. And there was something about Mike Ross that made him want to either shake the kid or give him a hug.

Like the day when Harvey had gotten tickets to ball game. He'd been planning to go with a girl, of course, a girl he was going with half-heartedly and had broken the date at the last minute, apologizing profusely as she got on a plane to visit an aunt who was going through chemo. "She needs me," the girl had said, kissing Harvey's cheek.

"I understand." Harvey replied, wondering what the hell he would do with two tickets.

He doesn't really understand why he asked Mike to come with him, except that he'd walked past the associate's cubical and had watched him being harassed. Again.

"God, Ross, my dog dresses better than you," One of the interns, admittedly not the brightest crayon in the box, had teased, looking at Mike's scuffed shoes.

Mike had opened his mouth, about to retort and probably land himself in a deep pile of shit, when some impulse made Harvey toss out the ticket he had buried deep in his breast pocket.

He picked the kid up early, looking up at the sky and trying to judge if the game would be called on account of rain. "They actually do that?" Mike had asked when Harvey aired this fear.

"Please don't say things like that," Harvey groaned, "I was varsity baseball in high school."

"Of course you were. I bet you were Mr. Popular."

"Damn straight."

They made it into the stadium and into some really good seats before it started to rain. And what a rain! Suddenly the lack of a ballgame seemed like the least of their problems. Harvey ran out of the stadium calculating the odds of them drowning in a storm.

"Enjoy the game, Harvey?" Ray asked once they slid into the back seat.

"Just get us back to my place," Harvey snapped, looking over at Mike who had his sweatshirt-clad arms wrapped around his torso and was shivering so violently Harvey could actually hear his teeth chatter. "If you take off the sweatshirt you'll be warmer." Harvey said grudgingly, only because he couldn't stand how the kid's paleness brought out the dark bruises under his eyes, the tight pinch to his lips. He didn't like how the wet sweatshirt clung to Mike's body, only accentuating the fact that a lawyer for one of the biggest firms in New York couldn't really afford to feed himself properly.

Mike just pursed his lips and dug himself further into the seat, offering a small polite smile that did little to hide how really cold he was. Harvey sighed and decided to wait on the battle until they were someplace with hot showers and warm blankets.

"You could have just dropped me off at my place," Mike said, dripping water on Harvey's doorstep.

"I promised you a ballgame. Maybe Chicago didn't get as much rain as we did." Harvey flipped through the channels and then muted the White Sox – Rangers game so he could focus on the thing that was ruining his apartment.

"Will you just get out of that thing?" Harvey rolled his eyes and pulled the Yankees hoodie all the way off his associate and then, as Mike protested, stripped him of his T-shirt for good measure. "Shower's through the first door on the right," He was saying, then stopped suddenly as the shirt came off and Mike whipped around.

They stared at each other for a moment, the young, half-naked man with old scars littering his back and the lawyer who was suddenly speechless.

Mike's entire face changed, and when he spoke his voice was low and dull. "I'm sorry," he said, reaching a hand out for the shirt that Harvey was still holding, "I'll just…yeah. Go."

Harvey's hand suddenly flipped and caught Mike's wrist. Mike tried for a second to pull away and then became eerily still. "Where are those from?" Harvey asked, his voice detachedly curious, as if he was asking Mike how fast he could run a mile or how many times he'd seen _Empire Strikes Back_.

"It was a long time ago, Harvey." Mike didn't try to pull away, but did look over his shoulder, casting a longing glance at the door. "I should leave."

"You'll drown." Harvey pointed out, which wasn't really like stopping him but _damn_ he wasn't expecting this. Hadn't he heard somewhere from someone that Mike's parents had died in a car accident when he was young? That he'd been brought up by a sweet old grandmother who was now eating up whatever money Mike was able to make? "Take a shower." He turned around and stared at the game as if he could be more interested in something happening states away than in what was going on with the shivering young man leaving his living room.

Mike didn't know what to do, so he took a shower. His apartment got lukewarm water at best, so he allowed himself the luxury of just standing under the jet and letting steam fill the room. He couldn't remember the last time he'd been this warm…and then he stepped out the shower to find a towel, a pair of worn but clean sweatpants, a sweatshirt (emblazoned with the word HARVARD, of course) and a note.

Harvey liked notes. Mike still couldn't figure out why, because most of the time it seemed like the lawyer was allergic to paperwork and everything that went with it, but he liked to leave Mike notes saying things like _If you're late to the Peterson trial tomorrow I actually will fire you _or _my god, princess, will you just eat something already? I know you're trying to save your figure for marriage but what I really don't need is an associate passing out on me_ or _I'm pretty sure I saw that suit at a Halloween store for a buck fifty._

He left them everywhere. Never on Post-Its – Harvey was above useful sticky pieces of paper. No, it was always an eight by ten piece folded over, with Harvey's neat, clear block letters squarely in the middle of the inside. Mike took one look at it and decided to put on the clothes first, soaking in the warmth of the fabric and the air before jolting painfully back to reality.

I DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU'RE TRYING TO HIDE FROM ME, KID, AND I REALLY DON'T CARE. THE PAST IS IN THE PAST, RIGHT? BUT IF IT EVER INTERFERES WITH YOUR WORK I WILL MAKE IT MY BUISNESS TO FIND OUT.

They weren't especially kind words, or even especially cruel ones, but Mike pinched the bridge of his nose before the tears managed to really well up in his eyes. He wasn't going to cry. He really wasn't. It's just that anyone who saw the scars were either disgusted or perversely fascinated. The fact that Harvey was neither, that he really, honestly didn't care, was the greatest gift he could have ever given Mike.

He went back out into the apartment and spent a good minute watching the rain fall outside. The huge windows that gave a fantastic view of Manhattan were also great for showing the power of the storm. Raindrops hurled themselves against the glass like they had something to prove, and Mike felt himself feeling sorry for any poor schmucks who had to be out in the weather.

The smell of…something…led him to the kitchen. "I didn't know you knew how to cook," Mike said, raising an eyebrow at Harvey's back. Somehow, he had never pictured the older man in anything other than a suit, but now Harvey was clad very similarly to Mike. He looked…normal. Not at all like the demi-God he portrayed himself as on a daily basis.

Harvey glanced at him and snorted. "You look about ten years old."

"It's the hair, isn't it?" Mike rubbed his hands vigorously through his hair, trying to shake the water from it. "Are those hotdogs?"

"Ballpark franks," Harvey said, "I promised you a game, right? You can't do baseball without hotdogs."

"Boiled hotdogs?"

"This is how my mother made them!" Harvey defended, "But if you don't like them you are welcome to scrounge something from my garden."

"You have a garden?"

"No. God, you're six stories up, how in the world do you think I would support a garden? You're so dense. I was making a joke about you going out in the rain."

"Oh. It wasn't a very good joke."

They sat on Harvey's couch only after the lawyer had quoted the exact price of the furniture and made it quite clear that if Mike got any mustard on it he would not be paying for a replacement

They watched the Rangers win in a surprisingly sunny Chicago and were just getting into a Red Sox –Rays game when the words started spilling out of Mike's mouth. "Thanks for not making a big deal about…about the scars."

Harvey muted the game and gave him a long look. "I tried not to. Are you going to make it a big deal?"

"No. Like you said, it's in my past. But I will tell you if. You know. You want to know." Mike rushed on, words tripping over each other as they scrambled out of his mouth. "It's just that you usually want to be thorough and I don't mind telling you." Mostly because he didn't ask for the story, and this was one person who Mike really, really wanted to know everything about him. He wanted Harvey to understand where he came from.

Harvey sighed and looked longingly at the sixty-three inch screen built into his wall. "You remember me saying that I don't really give a crap about you?"

"You never said that," Mike pointed out, already drawing a leg up to the couch so he could face Harvey head-on. He was settling in for a story. "And I'm not asking you to care. I'm asking you if you want to know the story."

Harvey couldn't deny that he did, in fact, want to know. One of the biggest attractions in being a lawyer was that it was in the job description to know every side of the story. And he felt like he didn't even know _one_ side of the story that was Mike Ross. "Proceed."

"Thank you, that's very kind." Mike quirked a familiar smile, and it occurred to Harvey that he really did look like a kid, swimming in Harvey's too-big sweatshirt, with his hair plastered to warmth-flushed cheeks. "So, you know about my parents? They were killed in a car accident when I was eight." He said this as nonchalantly as possible, but it was also in a lawyer's job description to catch onto minute tells. Like the fact that Mike clenched his fists when he said _killed_. Like how his eyes shuttered closed at the mention of parents.

"Well, I lived with my grandmother after that. She was really great – raised me by myself, you know? But she was always sick. Better back then than she is now, of course, but the dementia set in pretty early on. I was twelve when I was placed in foster care. It was only for a year, and only because grandma had done a couple of old-people things. Caught the curtains on fire because she left the stove on. That kind of stuff. Nothing bad, not really.

"Anyway, they sent me to live with Keith and Michelle in Boston. I hated Boston – I was raised here in the city, and everything from the weather to the baseball team drove me absolutely crazy. And Keith and Michelle…they were really into the whole _spare the rod and spoil the child_ thing, you know? I guess it's New England childrearing or something. I dunno. But it wasn't long before being sent to bed without supper turned into being smacked around and that turned into beatings and being locked in the basement. Their marriage was falling apart, you know? I was the last foster kid they ever took in." Mike stared at Harvey, who hadn't said anything, hadn't moved.

"It's not like they were awful people. They'd take me to museums and the zoo, stuff like that. I just screwed up a lot. I wasn't exactly he most pleasant child at twelve. Angsty, you know? A nerdy, angsty kid with an eidetic memory. I was a real smart-alec, too. Kept trying to one-up everyone. Maybe they were good for me in the long run. I definitely learned how to control myself in that house." He shrugged, sighed. "After ten months my grandma had finally gotten through all the red tape and got me back. Keith and Michelle gave me a book. You ever read _Watership Down? _I still have it, that copy. That and the scars."

Harvey still didn't say anything, so Mike just kept talking. Kept trying to fill up this silence. "I'm not an abuse victim or anything. I pretty much had all of it coming to me. And I bruise like a peach. The only problem is now I have to keep my shirt on, like, all the time, because people get freaked out by the scars. Especially girls. They start treating me like I'm some kind of kicked puppy."

Now he'd officially run out of things to say and suddenly felt embarrassed to be sitting there in Harvey Specter's apartment wearing Harvey Specter's clothes with Harvey Specter looking at him so intently. He wrung his hands together (a nervous habit he'd picked up while enduring the beatings with Keith and Michelle, actually) and got his leg off the couch.

"Thanks for sharing that, princess. I don't know what I would have done if I'd gone my whole life without hearing such an amazing story. If you wrote it down it could be the next great American novel. But you should totally include some later stuff, too. Like how you got a gig as a lawyer because you didn't want to be caught with weed."

"Don't be an ass." Mike said, his voice so low and frustrated that Harvey did shut his mouth and un-mute the game so they could both pretend to watch it.

He didn't know where the words had come from, because while he'd been listening to the story Harvey had been thinking: My god, his parents died when he was only eight. In a car accident. I wonder if he was in the car with them.

He was thinking: My god, he's making excuses for them. He's actually trying to rationalize this.

He was thinking: My god, Donna was right. I really did just take in a lost puppy.

Because when Harvey stared at the profile of Mike Ross, his resolute chin and hurt eyes almost blending into the rain-lashed window and murky darkness beyond, all he could think about was how if he'd known Mike back then, he could have never let anything like this happen to him.

And now he was thinking: My god, what's happening? Am I really getting attached to this kid?

.***.

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	3. Sick

_And as far as possible for sickness or fatigue, constrain yourself to eat in the hall before your people, for this shall bring honour to you. **Robert Grosseteste**_

.***.

The thing with Harvey is that he was unpredictable. He was annoyed with Mike when he took on a second job because he wouldn't ask Harvey for money, and then he was flippant when Mike poured out his soul into his life story. After _that_ embarrassing experience, Mike decided to just keep himself to himself.

November rolled around and he was still, miraculously, at the firm. But only because he worked really damn hard to be there.

"Did you go home at all?" Rachel hissed at him when he came out of the bathroom at seven o'clock in the morning. Mike grunted and moved past her towards the coffee, thanking the good Lord for caffeine as he tossed it down his itchy, raw throat. No, he hadn't gone home, but he couldn't really afford to, not while he was working on the Lawler case, the same one he'd been trying to crack for the past two weeks. He knew there was a loophole somewhere in the 3,687 pages he had scattered across his desk and Harvey's office, but for the life of him he just couldn't concentrate on the words that had started to swim in front of his eyes somewhere around two in the morning. By that time, he thought it would be more dangerous to ride home, drunk on exhaustion, then to sneak into Harvey's office and fall asleep on his ridiculously expensive couch.

"You look awful."

"Thanks, you're a peach." Mike closed his eyes and poured another cup of coffee, wishing for a hot, steamy shower and a down blanket.

"Mike!" Harvey called from across the bullpen of interns, and Mike jumped so much at the sound that the hot coffee spilled over on his hand. He dropped the cup onto the table and stuffed his burnt hand into his pocket.

"You look awful." Harvey said when he trotted over to him, now wishing for a bandage and some asprin.

"I've been getting that a lot lately."

"Well, stop. We have a meeting in an hour and a half and appearance is everything." Harvey's temper flared when he saw Mike roll his eyes and mouth the last three words with him. "Hey!" He barked, and the kid jumped, which was actually kind of cool. "A good suit can make or break a deal. As can good evidence. Go over to the post office, they just got another part of that brief in the mail."

"Isn't this what Fed Ex is for? Or a fax machine? Or email? Seriously, this is the twenty-first century." Mike shifted his weight as he remembered a) he did not have anything heavier than his suit to wear and b) the forecast had been calling for ridiculously low temperatures, like thirty degrees, twenty-five…

"I like to be more personal. Plus, Fed Ex can get it here in sixty-five minutes. If you hurry, you'll be able to get it in fifty. And you need to find that loophole before the meeting." He left the _or else_ implied and saw Mike's eyes harden at the insinuation. But Harvey stood firm on this – he'd been sent on more than one pointless package run as an associate, and maybe the bike ride would get Mike's blood moving so he didn't look like a walking zombie.

He didn't expect Mike to be jumping for joy at this revelation, but the kid looked like he'd just told him Harvey had run over his puppy. With a tank. And then backed up on it again for good measure. But he steeled himself, as Harvey knew he would, and thrust out a determined chin.

"I'll do it in forty."

Of course, before Mike could even make it down the stairs he made a quick detour for the men's room and threw up the paltry dinner he'd had the night before. He definitely wasn't feeling so good, and the prospect of going out into the chilly streets made him cringe, but what could he do? He needed this job, and Harvey wasn't giving anything away. Mike had to act as if he spent every day at the firm on probation.

He wiped his mouth with a paper towel and made a mental note to buy a bag of mints during this excursion, and then, without further pondering or putting off, he made his way down the elevator and out the doors into the frigid Manhattan streets.

Nothing, nothing could have prepared him for this. He started coughing right away, as the thin air hit his lungs and made it impossible to breathe. He looked around blearily for his bike, noting that the world seemed to be spinning slowly in one direction, then the other. He had the presence of mind to strap on his helmet and make sure it was secure before setting off – in his condition, he was sure that a crash would not be an _if_ but a _when_.

The _when_ happened just as the post office came into view, when he turned too sharply and collided into a traffic light, bounced off, hit a taxi, and vaguely remembered flipping off the driver who'd flipped him off first. God, he hurt everywhere. His bones were sore. His soul was sore.

He caught this bug every year. Some kind of mutant hybrid of the stomach flu and influenza, Mike was usually laid up in bed for four or five days, vomiting on the hour and sleeping fitfully through feverish nightmares about car accidents and the sting of a belt on his back.

But now he didn't have time to be sick, and when he threw up in a trash can outside the post office he tried to compose himself. He couldn't afford to take any time off, not with Harvey being so unpredictable, not when his job might be given away the second he turned his back.

But god, did he hurt…

He picked up the package, another hundred and ten pages to add the tome that was leeching its way across his desk. How would he be able to concentrate on this, try to find that magic wording? He had no idea.

He knew that he was feverish but he was cold, so, so cold, and his bike rocked back and forth in his hands. He hit another pole, then a pedestrian, and somehow it was Mike on the ground, palms bleeding, and he looked at his hands and remembered that one of them had been burnt…somehow…earlier in the morning.

Reality ceased to exist. All there was was a world of pain and sickness, and Mike contemplated just blowing off the job, blowing off Harvey if he meant he'd get to rest. He was just so tired, so, so tired.

Somehow, he made it back up to his cubical, shaking from the cold or the fever or both, trying to soothe his coughs and rolling stomach with peppermints that did little to alleviate the ache deep in his body.

"Mike," Harvey stretched out his hands, snapped his fingers. "You got that loophole?"

"What?" Mike looked down at the papers in front of him. There was a portion that was highlighted as if by magic, and it was this paper that he handed to Harvey, not even bothering to look at his boss for a reaction but staring fixedly at a point above his head, willing himself not to vomit, not now. Only seven hours, and he could go home and die.

"Perfect," Harvey started to walk away, and then looked over his shoulder. The kid really did look awful, but Harvey remembered more than one late night when he was so focused on the project sleep just wasn't an option. And the kid deserved this… "You're coming. In case you didn't get that."

Usually Mike was a ball of energy, trying to get in on every meeting he could, jumping at the chance to see a deal brought to fruition. Now though…was that a sigh? Did Mike groan when he got to his feet? Was it Harvey's imagination, or did he stick his hands in his pockets right away, as if hiding something? He shrugged it off and promised himself to let the kid have an actual hour for lunch today. Mike looked like he needed a good meal. Or a really good drink.

Harvey paused with his hand on the door to his office, turning to block Mike from view. He opened his mouth, about to ask if something was wrong, because he could see Mike's whole body shaking through his too-big suit and his face…pained, and dumb with exhaustion. But he was Harvey Specter, and so when he said, "Don't screw this up," It came out more abrasive than he wanted but _damn_ he just wanted the kid to stop shaking.

What Mike had found broke the case wide open, and Harvey smoothly negotiated a settlement with the irate lawyers on the other side. The whole time he was shooting Mike sideways glances, because usually the associate would be squirming with pleasure at the fact that he had been the one to bring the loophole to Harvey's attention. Today Mike's hands were gripping the arms of his seat, hard. When everyone stood up to shake all around, Harvey glanced at Mike again and felt something in him turn to ice when he saw the tiny blood splatters left behind on the chair.

"What the hell are you thinking?" Harvey snarled, turning on Mike the minute the others were out of sight.

Mike, for his part, managed to get that gleam of fire back in his eyes and he fixed Harvey with a don't-fuck-with-me glare that was so _Mike_ Harvey felt himself relax. What was he doing? Was he actually caring about Mike's well-being?

"What are you talking about?" Mike asked, his voice coming out raspy and raw but at least he snapped back. "I broke the case for you. I didn't do anything wrong."

"You dripped blood all over my seat." He pointed to the chair Mike had just vacated and watched the kid blanch at the sight of the small scarlet dots. "And you're shaking."

"Am not."

"When was the last time you ate?"

"When was the last time you gave a damn?" Mike snapped, breathing hard. "I'm doing the best I can, Harvey." Mike choked on his last words, trying to catch his breath, and without further ado pushed his way past Harvey and out of the office.

Harvey gave it five seconds, ten, then strolled after him, trying not to look like he wanted to appease the feelings of his associate. He saw Mike fly into the bathroom and exhaled slowly, counting to ten in his head the way they'd done it as children, with _Mississippi_s in between. Then he pushed open the door and saw Mike getting off his knees, wiping a hand across his chin.

"What?" Mike asked roughly, "I'm sorry for the chair, okay? I didn't know I was still bleeding."

Harvey just shook his head, and Mike realized that his boss looked pale, as if he'd been the one puking his guts out. He was putting out a hand, too, and Mike flinched because too many people had put out their hands like that to him, palm out and raised. He was so, so tired though, and he felt dizzy and cold and hot and couldn't believe he was actually standing up right. He could never defend himself, not against Harvey who was bigger than him…

But Harvey touched his face, near his mouth, and Mike was surprised to see his hand coming away with blood. Had he touched his face with his bleeding hands? But no, the blood flow had stopped and good ol' clotting was setting in. So what…?

"Harvey…" He mumbled, an instant before he crumpled to the bathroom floor.

.***.

"Just cancel everything for the rest of the day, Donna." Harvey said, eyes snapping around the waiting room as he paced back and forth and back and…no one was telling him a damn thing, and as soon as he got everything at work taken care of he was going to change that.

"I don't know anything. He was just vomiting blood." His voice was low, tense, worried beyond belief because he'd never seen a sight like Mike in that bathroom, sweaty and shaking and pale and scared that he was going to lose his job because he was so sick blood leaked from his mouth, stained his teeth. "Did anyone see us?"

He should have called 9-1-1, he knows he should have, but he kept thinking about the other associates and Louis and how Mike's business didn't need to be flaunted in front of the whole staff, so instead he'd wrapped his coat around Mike's shoulders and bustled him into his car.

"Well, Louis is always suspicious, if thinks we just caught a case I can live with that. Yeah, Donna, I'll call you when I know something. He'll be alright." He hung up before he could contemplate whether that last sentence was for Donna's benefit or his own.

Peter Kettering was there again, and had looked in on Mike's case as a favor to Harvey. He motioned to Harvey from the other side of the waiting room. "You just keep sending me business, huh?" Kettering said, starting off down one hallways, turning down another. "Poor kid. He worships the ground you walk on, you know? First thing out of his mouth both times he's been here is always _Harvey_. I tried to tell him you were a bastard."

"He knows I am. So what's wrong with him, Peter?"

"Besides the fact that he's sick as a dog, not much. If you hadn't brought him in when you did it would have been another story. Had a temperature of a 103.2. I don't have to tell you that that's dangerous, and we're still trying to bring it down. He's in and out of lucidity, but he seemed anxious to see you." They both paused at the door to Mike's room, where the kid looked small and vulnerable, as pale as the sheets that surrounded him. "Play nice, huh? The nurses like this kid, and they're a pain in the ass to work with if someone shoots Bambi in front of them."

Harvey grunted, shifting his weight as the doctor left him. What was he supposed to do, sit here and hold Mike's hand until his fever broke?

"What were you thinking?" He said out loud, his voice thick with something like emotion. Harvey Specter doesn't _do_ emotion. "You were just going to walk out of my office and make me believe everything was fine, weren't you? You were going to ride that death trap of yours back to that shitty apartment that probably doesn't have decent heating and you were going to freeze and die when your fever didn't break. Goddamnit!" He hurled himself into the seat next to the bed as Mike blinked at him through a film of pain.

"I didn't want to drag you into this." Mike said, his voice painfully quiet. "It's not your problem."

"Goddamnit!" Harvey cursed again, resisting the urge to pick up Mike's scraped and burnt hand from the bedspread. "You are my problem! You're a big problem! No one else in my entire life has been as much of a problem to me as you!"

Mike winced and turned away, gritting his teeth as his body was wracked with a tremor. He shook violently, glad that he could write off the liquid dripping from his eyes as a reaction from the fever, or from the pain, or from the fact that his body was eating itself from the inside.

Because to Mike's illness-beaten body, he equated _problem_ with _burden_, and knew in his heart that Harvey had never signed up for an associate who got himself shot and had a back story worthy of a daytime soap opera.

He didn't know, couldn't guess, not in this state, that Harvey was taking responsibility for Mike, that he hadn't thought of anybody as his "problem" since he used to tell the other jocks to lay off his little brother back in high school. Harvey was trying to tell Mike that he cared. He just couldn't find the words.

But Mike didn't know that, and so he spent the rest of that day and the next and the next suffering alone.

.***.

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	4. Identity

_Call it a clan, call it a network, call it a tribe, call it a family. Whatever you call it, whoever you are, you need one. **Jane Howard**_

.***.

Mike began that god-awful day with a fall.

He really is a good bike rider and (luckily) always wore a helmet, even if it made Harvey smirk every time he took it off. But when a runner bumped into him a little too hard while he was looking the other way he couldn't help it – he spilled over into traffic, hands coming up just in time to break his fall.

"Damnit!" He muttered, swiping at his now-dirty suit and glaring at the ground as if it was its fault he'd been born with absolutely no balance to speak of. "Now where…" His bag had fallen a couple of feet away, spilling some of its contents but not, thank god, the folder of papers he'd brought home from the office the night before. Maybe he'd be able to go on with his day after all.

Except that when he scooped everything into his bag, Mike realized that not only was his phone cracked, it now refused point-blank to turn on. Getting a replacement definitely couldn't happen before the end of the day, and he sighed as he got back on his bike, praying that Harvey wouldn't try to call him any time soon.

"You broke your cell." Harvey said, raising an eyebrow as if people didn't break their cell phones every day. "And how did you do that?"

"I fell off my bike."

"Were you hit by something?"

Mike clenched his jaw, but he wouldn't broaden that smirk by telling Harvey that a hundred and ten pound college girl had been enough to send him to the ground. Harvey smiled anyway, which just made Mike confident in his previous assumption that Harvey could read minds.

"Just get a new one by the end of the day," Harvey had said, flipping him a phone that had come seemingly out of nowhere. "I'm not always this nice."

"Don't I know it," said Mike, making a mental note to get his phone fixed and then letting the whole incident slide from his mind with nothing more than scraped palms for memories.

Donna had just finished scheduling a dinner meeting at one of the most exclusive restaurants in the city of exclusive restaurants when she got the call. Still flushed from her victory – not every secretary could have arranged for a dinner in the privet room on the seventh floor of Bergdorf's –she'd answered the phone with a sing-song, "Harvey Specter's office, how may I assist you?"

"I was told I could use this number to get into contact with a Mike Ross?" The woman on the other end sounded tired, strained.

"I know Mike Ross," Donna said, wondering who the hell Mike could have given this number to. She knew that the poor puppy was more than a little afraid of her (which made him kind of sweet) and would not be directing people to her willy-nilly.

"This is the Shady Oaks retirement home. His cell number isn't working, or I would have told him directly." The woman hesitated, and Donna prompted her with a discreet cough, "I'm very sorry to have to deliver the news, but his grandmother had a severe stroke an hour ago and has passed away. Can you give him the message? And be gentle. He was always a dear to his grandmother."

Donna tried not to let the shock betray her in her tone. "Of course. I'll tell him right away. Should he go down there?"

"Most like to pay their last respects, and there is the funeral to attend to." The woman on the other end sighed, "That poor boy."

Donna echoed the sentiment to herself as she hung up the phone. What to do? How do you go about telling someone that their grandmother died? From some of the things Mike had said about his life, Donna gathered that his grandmother was a big part of it.

She was lucky that Harvey happened to be coming up the hallway right then and she stood up, happy for the help. "Harvey…."

"What's up, Donna? Louis asking you to set him up on a blind date again?" He looked up from the brief he was reading and his brow furrowed when he saw her face. "Hey. What's wrong?"

Haltingly, Donna told him about the call, "I just don't know how to do this, Harvey. How do you tell someone that their whole world has changed?"

Harvey shot her a sympathetic look, "Let me do it. I'm a lawyer. I tell people bad news all the time. Just send him to me."

"Be nice," Donna said, and Harvey used his index finger to cross his heart.

Not for the first time, Harvey rued the man who'd ever thought of glass doors. He collapsed behind his desk and ran a hand through his hair. He knew that Mike's grandmother had raised him by herself, that she was the only family he poor guy had left. And, damnit, this just wasn't part of his job description! He wasn't supposed to care about some guy's personal life!

Of course, the fact that he was agonizing about the situation meant that he did care, but he let that slide for the moment, because Mike had just walked in.

"What's up? Catch a case?" Mike looked at Harvey's desk, curiously devoid of papers, and raised an eyebrow at him. "Did you just call me here to stare at me? Seriously, Harvey, you're freaking me out."

"Sit down," Harvey said, and noticed some of the color drain from Mike's face as he sat. But he couldn't get further than that. He was good with words – exceptionally good with words – but he couldn't seem to find the right ones for this occasion.

"If you're going to fire me just do it," Mike said, his voice hard, "This is just cruel."

"I'm not going to fire you," Harvey said, absolutely sure that in a couple of minutes Mike was going to wish that he'd been fired. Better lose a job than lose your family, Harvey knew that better than anyone. "Mike, your grandmother's dead."

Mike cocked his head to the side, making his resemblance to a canine all the more apparent. He didn't look upset, or angry. He just looked confused. "How would you know that?"

"Donna got a call. Apparently this place down as an alternate number, and since your phone broke this morning…" Harvey's voice trailed off when he saw the realization that this was actually _happening_ dawn on Mike. "I'm truly sorry," He murmured, the words sounding inadequate to his own ears.

"No, it's okay." Mike said, standing up, knocking over the chair, righting it, turning around, turning back, forcing a small smile on his face that didn't go with the desperation in his eyes. "Can you…? Can I…? Harvey, I need to see her."

"I cleared the afternoon." Harvey said, standing up much more smoothly than Mike had. "And I called the car."

"You don't have to come!" Mike protested. He hadn't even thought of that possibility, not now when only one thought (_She's dead, she's dead, she's dead_) was echoing in his head like an awful song you couldn't forget. Why would Harvey want to do this? He only did things to help himself, hadn't he said that to Mike once? "I'll be okay."

"Sit down," Harvey said, pointing to a couch, "Or you're going to fall over."

Mike collapsed, more out of pure emotional exhaustion than from Harvey's order. _She's dead, she's dead, she's dead._ Harvey knelt in front of him. "Look at me."

"I'm fine, Harvey. I can handle it by myself." If Mike could have brought himself to look Harvey in the eyes, he would have seen a flash of sympathy there.

"No doubt. But you don't have to." _That's_ when Mike's head shot up, eyebrows raising questioningly. "And, no, this is not because I feel the need to hold your hand. Donna would be pissed if I put her through the process of hiring another associate so soon after the last one. And she's not above mocking me."

Mike nodded mutely at this. He understood self-absorbed Harvey much more than the human, caring one he saw flashes of from time to time. "As generous and kind-hearted as that sounds, I think I would rather say goodbye alone."

"This is not really an option, Mike."

They got to the nursing home Mike had been in so many times nurses smiled at him and asked him about his job (he'd told _them_ he was working at Pearson Hardman, and they were happy for him.) "Mike!" Evelyn, the middle-aged Latina nurse with soft hands and a voice like honey greeted him at the door. "It's been a while since we've seen you in the middle of the day. No trouble at work, I hope? And who's this?" She looked at Harvey, smiling automatically.

"Evie, this is my boss, Harvey. Harvey, Evelyn. She's the head nurse." He said this quickly, getting social norms out of the way so he could plow on to, "Ev, it's my grandmother. Do you know where they put her?"

"She's still in her room, honey," Evelyn said, her brow folding in confusion, but Mike and his boss were already past her, rushing down one hallway, turning, turning, another hallway.

Mike threw open a door and rushed into it, needing to confirm for himself that the worst was true. What he saw was Carolina Ross sitting up in her bed, reading a paperback. "Michael!" She said happily. "What's going on?"

Mike was stunned, absolutely stunned. He collapsed in a chair next to his grandmother's bed and stared at her without opening his mouth, without moving.

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Mrs. Ross," Harvey said, holding out his hand, "I'm -"

"Harvey Specter!" Carolina said, shaking his hand with a grip that was very firm for a woman in her eighties. "Why haven't you visited me before? Mike talks about you constantly."

"Grandma…" Mike said, finding his voice in time for his face to turn scarlet.

"Now what are you two doing here in the middle of the day? I was under the impression that this is prime time for lawyering."

"Mike wanted to introduce us, and we were in the area." Harvey said, lying smoothly and shooting Mike a look that warned him not to contradict. "You've raised quite a man, Mrs. Ross."

"Carolina, please. Don't make me feel old." The old woman giggled and patted Harvey's hand. "Thank you for coming. Mike gets in when he can, but I always feel like I don't see him enough. Not that I'm complaining! He was made to do this kind of work." She lowered her voice to a stage-whisper, "And he adores you, Harvey Specter. Absolutely adores you."

Later, when they were walking out, Mike rounded on Harvey. "Did you make that up?" His eyes were blood-shot, his fists were balled.

"What?"

"You told me that my grandmother was dead." Mike reminded, and Harvey felt himself bristling at the insinuation. "Is that some kind of sick joke to you?"

"What? No! Someone called Donna and said that your grandmother had died. Really. Ask her." Harvey couldn't believe that Mike would think that of him. "I wouldn't do something like that."

Mike shot him a look that said, _yeah right_ and marched over to the nurse's station. "Excuse me?" He said, "I got a call that my grandmother had passed and that turned out to be false. Can you tell me how something like that might happen?"

"What's your grandmother's name and room number?"

"Carolina Ross? Room 328?" Mike tapped his fingers on the desk, still shooting Harvey murderous looks as the nurse, a young woman with long, blood-red fingernails, tapped at the keyboard.

"Oh!" She put a hand over her mouth, eyes softening in sympathy. "I'm sorry, Mr. Ross. It seems that a Georgina Ross on the second floor also has a grandson named Mike Ross that visits her regularly. She passed this morning, and I guess something got confused. I'm sorry!" She said again, "But that's a really strange coincidence."

"Just…just tell this other guy about his grandmother, okay?" Mike said, already moving down the hallway because if he didn't get fresh air right _now_ he felt like he might just stop breathing. Harvey moved in step with him, not saying anything, but a certain smugness was emanating off him. "I'm sorry, alright? I shouldn't have accused you of something like that."

Harvey debated how much he should torment the kid for this, and then decided to just let it go. The poor guy had had the epitome of bad days. "I wouldn't do something like that." He bit his tongue before he could say the rest of the sentence, _not to you_. Harvey Specter, best closer in New York, had to keep some of his secrets.

.***.

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	5. Mugged

_"Grief is the price we pay for love." **Elizabeth II**_

.***.

Harvey poured a glass of scotch before settling on his couch and turning on the television. It was a rare night that he stayed in alone, but he was glad for the opportunity to relax. The more scotch he downed, the more he felt the tension leaving him.

And then his cell phone rang.

He debated for a minute about picking it up. He wasn't the only partner at the firm. Surely it could survive the night if he just stayed here and melted into his couch. But he was much too much of a type A personality to just let other people do his work. So he picked up, not even pretending to be happy about being called this late just as he was settling in to quite a nice night. "What?"

"Harvey…" That was all it took. Harvey was on his feet, already looking for shoes before Mike could get any more of that sentence out. The kid sounded broken. "Sorry it's so late."

"What's going on?" Harvey asked, thinking that this could be about Mike's grandmother again, or maybe those dealers had come back to collect, or another emergency room visit after a shoot-out.

"They stole my bike. And the money. I couldn't get a cab and I can't…No way I can walk back to my apartment. Can you just call a car? Or a taxi? I'll pay you back, Harvey."

"Where are you?" Harvey demanded, looking around for his keys. He rarely drove his own car (even if it was a gorgeous Ferrari Enzo) and could never remember to put his keys in the same spot. When Mike was quiet for more than a couple of seconds he barked. "Mike! Where are you?"

"I don't…I can't remember." There was a hitch in the breathing. "But there's a Pisa's Pizza down the street next to Two Fella's Pawn Shop."

Harvey cursed. He knew exactly where Mike was, in one of the worst parts of the city. He found his keys and flew out of the apartment, taking the stairs because there was no way he was waiting for an elevator. "I'm on my way, Mike, just keep talking. Are you hurt?" This should have been his first question, and the silence on the other end was loud to his ears.

"Please hurry." Mike's voice was barely a whisper, and Harvey found himself shouting uselessly as the line went dead.

Contrary to popular belief, New York does sleep. Not until much later than other cities, but past midnight the traffic is nothing like six or seven at night. Which is good, because Harvey could have never sat in traffic after _that_ conversation.

By the time he was approaching where he thought Mike would be, Harvey was nervous about what he would find. He turned so that his headlights shone down the alley and at first he saw…nothing. Trash bags and fire escapes but nothing, nothing that would point him in Mike's direction.

And then he heard the groan, and he was out of the car like a gunshot, praying that there would be no severed limbs or bleeding belly wounds. Praying that this was just the kid getting scared of his own shadow, and there was nothing the matter at all.

As if he could be so lucky.

"H-Harvey?" Mike says, sounding so surprised to see him that Harvey had to wonder whether he'd hallucinated the whole conversation. The kid was bent over double, one arm cradling the other, and his suit was torn, revealing long scratches underneath.

"Jesus, kid, what happened to you?" Mike gives Harvey a look like _what do you think? _and Harvey just has to hope that maybe the younger man isn't going to die on him after all. "C'mon, let's get you up. It's okay. You're going to be okay."

He pulled Mike up, and the smaller man was dead weight in his arms. Lucky for him Harvey had gotten the work-out bug from a Junior High coach and had never quit, or he never would have been able to support Mike all the way to the car, where the headlights revealed injuries that made Harvey blanch. He pulled open the passenger door and used a method that was half-shoving, half-lifting to roll Mike in, trying to ignore the wince of pain, the hitch of breath. "Easy. You're going to be okay."

"Sorry," Mike breathed, his voice so riddled with pain that it made Harvey wince. "Didn't…didn't know who else to call."

Harvey didn't have time to muse that it was a sad state of affairs if a young man had no one but his bastard of a boss to come save his ass in the middle of the night before Mike gasped in pain and Harvey raced to the other side of the car, trying to remember the route to the nearest hospital as he turned the wheel to get the hell out of Dodge.

They stopped at a red light before Harvey leaned over to check out Mike's injuries. He barely touched his arm before Mike recoiled, gnashing his teeth like a feral dog ready to lick its own wounds. "Is it broken?"

"Pretty broken." Mike said. "My back is worse."

And Harvey noticed that there is blood staining the seats of a car that cost him a good chunk of change. Somehow that doesn't matter very much when he sees Mike's glassy, dazed eyes, his pale cheeks and blue lips. "If you die on me you're fired."

That makes lips twitch into a barely-there smile. "I think that goes without saying." Mike looks over his shoulder, surveying the damage he's done to the seats. "Sorry about the car. And bothering you at…" he squints at the time on the dashboard. "Twelve forty-eight."

"I already told you, Mike. You're my problem." Jesus, did the kid really think he wasn't going to show? What did that say about Harvey? "And don't you fall to sleep on me! Mike! Michael Garfield Ross!"

"My middle name is not Garfield." Mike mumbled sleepily, burrowing himself into a corner of the seat.

"You're not asleep. That's all I wanted. You can pass out at the hospital."

"Because I won't be your problem at the hospital?" Mike asked, words coming out shallow and sore, and Harvey glanced over to see that Mike had shifted position and the broken arm was clearly visible. He'd never seen bone jut out of skin in two different places, and he'd been a gym rat since his early days.

"You're always going to be my problem." Harvey said, except this time when he said it even Mike's pain-muddled brain could hear the tenderness placed on the word _problem_. Even Mike could hear the panic in Harvey's normally confident voice.

"Don't tell me you're getting soft, now. Might lose your reputation." And then Mike passed out in Harvey's car a block away from the hospital, his boss's desperate voice ringing in his ears.

.***.

"I do expect to know what happened." Harvey said the next day in his apartment. Mike stared at him blearily. He looked so small, a pair of Harvey's baggy sweatpants the only thing he could wear since shirts irritated the bandages that wound their way up his torso. The cast on his left arm, bright green, looked heavy and cumbersome on Mike's small body.

"I got mugged." Mike said, but knew he'd have to elaborate. He owed Harvey something for answering the phone in the middle of the night and rescuing him from that hellhole, not to mention waiting for him at the hospital and then taking Mike back to his place, checking on him every couple of hours because of the concussion, making tea and eggs and letting Mike lie in before asking the question that had been burning in his mouth all night.

Yeah, Mike owed Harvey something.

"I was on my way home and took a little bit of a detour," To drop by the dilapidated house of an old friend who had just gone through his first round of chemo and looked like hell, but since when to people with stage three skin cancer look pretty? He'd brought a funny movie and they tried to pretend that a twenty-something-year-old wasn't dying. He couldn't say that to Harvey, wouldn't. The man would make it into a joke, or else would think that Mike was whining. "When I was biking back two guys stepped out in front of me and told me to give them my bag. I refused, tried to run them down with my bike."

"At least you put up the semblance of fighting back." Harvey said, loathing himself for the sarcasm in his voice. Couldn't he be a decent human being now, with a young man scared out of his mind?

"Well, that stopped when they took out the gun." Mike shrugged, and didn't notice when Harvey's face froze. My god, somebody waved a gun at Mike? Again? Harvey felt a surge of protectiveness surge through him at the thought, and didn't even think to question where that had come from.

"They pushed me around a little. I didn't mind giving them the money or the credit cards. I could just cancel those. But I wanted to keep my wallet," He smiled sheepishly at Harvey, fingered the scars on his back, not the new ones from the night before but the old, old ones from a lifetime ago. "It had the only picture I had of my mom and dad."

Could Harvey have felt any worse for the poor kid?

"I probably shouldn't have fought. And then I definitely shouldn't have run. The guy carved up my back before of that and then he…" Mike turned away, breathing hard. They'd given him enough drugs to knock out a horse the night before, which was just as well. He had gotten bad nightmares his entire life. No doubt he would have heard the mugger's voice in his sleep: _how 'bout we just gut you before you can run to the police?_

"They threatened me. Broke my arm when they took my bag. Broke it good, too." He looked at his arm and wondered how he'd be as fast as Harvey needed him to be with that thing weighing him down. "The guy with the gun, he shot at me as they left. I thought I was going to die. It hurt like Hell." That was the scratch on his side, no more than half an inch deep. A bad paper cut, not serious. It had scared Mike to death.

Harvey didn't say anything at the end, and Mike felt his ears burn with shame. He hated disappointing Harvey, but he hated looking weak even more. "I'm sorry for everything, Harvey. I know it wasn't your job. I just…I couldn't call Rachel or Jenny. They would have totally freaked out. And…and you were the only one left." He paused, waiting for Harvey to say something and then murmured another, "I'm sorry," into the floor. Suddenly his back hurt quite a lot.

"You're such an idiot." And suddenly Harvey's arm was on his shoulder, not holding or rubbing but just touching, and Mike didn't know how much he wanted contact with another human being who didn't want to blow his brains out until he was leaning into the touch, melting into it. "You have any idea how scared I was when I saw you on the ground with all that blood? I thought you were dead."

"Look who grew a heart."

"And I asked the Wizard for a brain. Go figure." Harvey smirked and Mike let out a strangled laugh that turned into a sob halfway through. He shook under Harvey's arm and the lawyer didn't say anything, just sipped his tea and stared out the window at New York and wondered how much badness can happen to one person before they explode.

"Sorry," Mike said again a couple minute later, whipping his eyes, hysteria under control.

"My little brother used to always apologize for things that weren't his fault. It got on my nerves." Harvey said this lightly, but Mike flinched anyway, sensing a rebuke when he heard one.

"Thank you, Harvey." Mike said, feeling so tired he could barely keep his eyes open but he wanted to soak this in. He hadn't been cared for since his teenage years. It was nice to have someone else do something for him, even if it was Harvey, even if he'd be teased about it for the rest of his life.

"Aw Hell kid," Harvey said, scrubbing his face with one hand and looking down at Mike, who'd fallen asleep on Harvey's side. "You're welcome. I just wish you stopped ending up in these situations."

Because he cared about Mike too much to see the kid to get hurt.

.***.

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	6. Brothers

_Our most basic instinct is not for survival but for family. Most of us would give our own life for the survival of a family member, yet we lead our daily life too often as if we take our family for granted. **Paul Pearshall**_

.***.

Mike was still stinging from being thrown out of the meeting. Yes, he knew that Harvey thought this particular client was pond scum, that he was trying to keep that "ridiculous idealism" that Mike harbored alive. It still felt like he had been shunned to the kids' table.

"Hey," The man who touched his arm was maybe a year or two older than Mike, with a handsome face and shit-eating grin that was naggingly familiar. "You don't happen to know Harvey Specter, do you?"

Mike, who had just been about to walk into Pearson Hardman to (hopefully) finish some of the never-ending paperwork, was more than glad for a reason to come out of his funk. "Don't worry, you have the right place. If you make an appointment I'm sure Harvey will see you by the end of the week."

"Is he in right now?" The man asked hopefully, smile fading when Mike shook his head. "Damn. I was going to surprise him."

Mike adjusted his shoulder bag, squinting at that frustratingly familiar face. "I'm sorry…who are you?"

"Josh Specter." He shook Mike's hand, smiling at his surprise. "How well do you know my big brother?"

Mike called up to Donna and told her to make up whatever excuse to Harvey so he would actually get an hour for lunch. "What's going on?" Donna had demanded, because she could sense a secret like a shark sensed blood.

That's when Josh took the phone. "Donna?"

Even Mike, standing a foot away, could hear Donna squeal like a little girl. "Joshua! Is that you?"

"I'm going to take the new associate out for lunch and disillusion him about my big brother. You can have him back when he knows that Harvey is not a God." Josh winked at Mike, who could only gape at him. This was definitely Harvey's brother alright. Only a Specter could commandeer him so easily.

Josh took him to one of the most expensive restaurants in one of the most expensive hotels in New York, chatting the whole way there. "I don't know anything about you, but you're exactly the type Harv would pick." He said, looking Mike up and down. "Plucky. You're one of those self-made guys, aren't you? Harvey is such a sucker for the American Dream." He smiled as they sat down at a table in a hidden corner of the room. "I bet he never talked about me, huh?"

"He mentioned he had a brother." Once, and that was when talking to a client so Mike didn't know if he was bullshitting or not. To see the actual thing in front of him (with a suit similar to Harvey's, down to the vest, but his hair was light, almost as light as Mike's, and he was slimmer, built like a runner, not a baseball player, and his face…Mike didn't realize he thought something was off with his face until he noticed with a start that one eye was green like wet grass and the other was the pale blue the sky turns after it'd been bleached with rain) was alarming.

"Harv likes to put the past behind him. Like the _Lion King_?" He laughed at Mike's expression, the one that was like you-so-did-not-just-quote-a-Disney-movie. "What? Harvey's favorite method of distraction was to pop in that movie. It was his favorite."

"You guys were close, then?" Mike asked, unable to help himself. He'd always wanted a brother, had spent many hours of his life imagining what one might be like. Just to have someone to share experiences with, someone to talk to that was his own age and gave a damn. Someone to have inside jokes with and teach him about girls and…

Josh shot him a curious look. "Harvey…Harvey never told you about us?"

"He doesn't talk about his personal life." Mike said, so curious he felt like he was going to burst.

Josh smiled a little and shook his head, "No, he doesn't." He stared at Mike, appraising him frankly, "You're not going to spread this all over the firm? Because I won't let Harv's back story become water cooler gossip."

"Harvey's kept my secrets," Mike said, shrugging, "Of course I would keep his." Which was kind of like saying _I care about him and would never hurt him like that_ except in a way that wasn't completely gay.

Josh pulled his chair closer so he could lean over the table. Like his brother, he didn't usually talk about ancient history (lessons from _the Lion King_ rubbed off on him, too) and it's not like he told every Joe Schmo off the street his life story, but something about Mike, about his curiosity, about the compassion he could sense from just a few minutes conversation, told him that this was a worthwhile person to tell.

"I was nine when my dad died. It wasn't a sudden thing – my parents had me late in life. Mom died giving birth. I'm eleven years younger than Harvey, and he graduated both high school and college a year early, which just made him seem very grown up, you know? He was always more like a fun uncle to me than a brother. When dad died I could have just been turned over to CPS and shuttled around foster homes. It's happened before. Harvey took me in, even though he was in law school and didn't need a kid on his hands. Not everyone would do that, and he never once complained about it. He'd moan about lack of money, but he always made sure I knew I wasn't a burden, you know?"

Mike had just assumed that Harvey had come from money (a Harvard education wasn't cheap) and was suddenly seeing the huge apartment and collections of priceless sports paraphernalia in a new light. Once Harvey had money, he wanted to put it into things that would last. Mike understood that compulsion.

"He was already in law school by then. Twenty-one years old and the youngest in his class. It took him seven years to graduate because he had to keep dropping out to work." Josh's lips twitched into a smile. "I remember telling him I would drop out and get a job. I was no great shakes at school myself – I always say Harvey got the brains, I got the looks. He said no one would hire a twelve-year-old."

Josh looked at Mike, who was so engrossed in the story he was nearly falling off his chair. "I made it through high school about the same time Harv graduated Harvard. We went to each other's graduations and then high tailed it out of Boston. Never really liked the city anyway. Too cold, and it's a very serious town. Not like New York.

"Harv moved down here for business, and I guess I did, too. Just kind of fell into drawing, you know? Harv would take me with him whenever he had to work, and he was…oh, a waiter, mostly, sometimes he'd do some work on cars. I'd sit in a booth or a corner and sketch the people. And Harv was always hilarious. I used to write down the stuff he'd say when we were kids. I put them together and when I got to the city I submitted my cartoon."

"You draw cartoons?" Mike asked, dumbfounded. Without ever having met Josh, if someone had asked him what he thought Harvey Specter's little brother might do for a living, he would have said lawyer, of course, or doctor, or maybe professional athlete in something like baseball or tennis. "Really?"

"Sure," Josh patted his coat pockets and eventually withdrew a small, battered sketch book. "I came up with _The Cuckoo's Nest_ when I was…oh, about sixteen, seventeen. I perfected it and it's been in print for a decade now."

"It's one of my favorite comics." Mike said honestly, flipping open the book to a pencil sketch of the two main characters, a pair of brothers living together in a city, where one kept odd jobs and went to night school and the other chased girls and teased his older brother. "I didn't know it was based off of real life. But I should have connected the name…Joshua Specter. God, I read this comic every morning. No kidding. I pick up a paper just to get it. I never thought…"

"Yeah, no one ever believes Harv and I share genetics." Josh said, smiling at the sketch before slipping the book back into the pocket. "But he was one hell of a brother. I like to take him out to lunch a couple of times a month."

"Sorry you had to settle for me," Mike said, smirking. "Do you live in the city?"

"It's my base of operations, but I travel a lot. Don't get to see Harvey nearly as much as I'd like." Josh looked down at his sandwich and then up at Mike, "He saved my life. I could have just bounced around in foster care. He could have just gone to school without a nine-year-old tag-along. I owe him everything."

"I understand completely." Mike said, and for the first time since he met Harvey, he felt like he did.

.***.

"Josh!" Harvey said, wrapping his brother into the only appropriate greeting he could give him in public – a kind of awkward man hug that ended up in a half-wrestling match between the two of them. "You didn't say you were coming! I would have gotten out of the meeting."

"I wanted to surprise you. And Mike was a good substitute." He grinned at his brother so cheekily that Mike was sure he adopted that expression often. "He's a good listener."

"You telling stories again, kid?" Harvey asked, his tone so affectionate that Mike felt himself get hot and cold at once at the sound of it. How he'd always wished for a relationship like the one between the brothers.

"He needed to know," Josh said, shrugging, and then took something out of the slim briefcase he'd been carrying. "Something for you. Just for fun."

Harvey flipped open the book to a picture of him. Not cartoonish, exaggerated, nearly unrecognizable like the characters in _The Cuckoo's Nest_. This was Harvey as Mike often saw him, bent in concentration over his desk, twiddling a pencil in his hands and staring at a sheaf of papers with a look of intense concentration.

"Wow," Mike gasped, completely unable to help himself. He'd only ever seen the cartoons after all. This was talent like he'd never seen with a simple pencil and blank paper. It was gorgeous. "That's really good."

"You told me you were sketching Louis in an unfavorable light." Harvey said, but he couldn't even fake being affronted. He flipped the page. This one: Donna, head tilted to the side, hands clasped in front of her, as if she'd been clapping, her face happy and teasing as she stared at someone just on the outside of the paper. "She'll appreciate that."

"It's the least I could do. She's the one who gives me the best gossip." Josh flipped the page, this time to Jessica, staring out the window at the beautiful view, caught in a look of absolute happiness. Mike tried to tell himself to get over it, that these pictures could not be as beautiful as he thought they were. And with each new one, he was proven wrong.

Harvey touched Jessica's glowing face with the pad of one finger. He'd been around Josh and his art long enough to know now to press too hard, or else his brother would start to growl in the back of his throat and Harvey would draw back quick before he could possibly ruin the drawing.

"And one more," Josh said, flipping to the last page. No one said anything.

It was another simple sketch, just a pencil, of Mike and Harvey walking together down the hallway. Somehow, Josh had managed to capture Harvey's desire to perform well and his desire to live up to his own expectations, his long, confident stride and his dancing eyes. He was laughing at something Mike had just said.

And Mike, in the picture, was looking at Harvey with a look of such open adoration that the real Mike felt himself blushing. He was also smirking slightly in the way Mike always did when he tried to stifle his laughter.

"I thought you'd never met me before today," Mike said, the only words he could get out that didn't sound completely out of line.

"I said I didn't know anything about you. I visited Harv a couple weeks ago and happened to catch this. It's one of my favorite pieces I've ever drawn, actually."

Harvey wondered if that's how everyone saw them – him mentoring. Mike, the avid student, hanging on his every word. And every emotion in the drawing stood out and managed to coalesce into one big feeling – friendship. Complete and utter loyalty and trust.

"It's perfect." Harvey said, staring straight at Mike. The poor kid was blushing, meeting Harvey's eyes for a second and then darting away. "Can you part with it? I want to hang it in my office."

Mike gaped at him (Harvey putting up a simple sketch in his immaculate office?) but Josh just grinned like he knew that would be Harvey's response all along. "I think I can make do without it."

Good, because Harvey really wanted this. He wanted people to know what he and Mike were before they even started talking to him.

He wanted everyone, but especially Mike, to know that he cared.

.***.

**the end.**

**we cannot express our appreciation and undying gratitude for the multitude of reviews we recieved for this story. it was truly inspirational. not that this story was hard to write - it's one of our favorites ever, actually. these two have one of the greatest relationship dynamics on television, and it's great to borrow them for our own little world. we hope ya'll enjoyed it as much as we enjoyed writing it. and thanks again for the wonderful, wonderful reviews. **


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